Highs And Lows For Tennessee Tech Basketball Fans Over The Weekend

Tennessee Tech basketball fans experienced highs and lows this weekend with the men’s team’s overtime loss and the women’s team’s OVC Tournament win.

Athletic Director Mark Wilson said the men’s team losing after thinking they had a game-winning shot was “heartbreaking” for fans in Evansville. He said he had never had a locker room more silent than after that game Saturday night.

“You know one of the things that I keep coming back to is the old ABC Wide World of Sports intro,” Wilson said. “That talked about the thrill of victory, and the agony of defeat. The human drama of athletic competition.”

Wilson said there was cause for celebration Saturday with the success of the women’s basketball team. He said this is the 10th time the women’s team is going to the NCAA tournament, and the first since the year 2000. The Tech men have not made the NCAA Tournament since 1963, the second-longest drought in tournament history among teams who have made the tournament.

“We have young men who really developed lifelong friendships and relationships and they loved playing for each other and they had fun playing together,” Wilson said. “And when you have those elements of talent and family and love and caring, special things can happen and I think we saw that with the Golden Eagles this year and I think it’s a good stepping stone for this program.”

Wilson said he is proud of the work Coach Kim Rosamund and Coach John Pelphrey have put into their programs and the work of the student-athletes. He said the women’s team has already begun preparing for the NCAA tournament.